Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Chocolate Mint Oreo Cuppies

I mean, hydrox. Or sandwich cookies, or something. Ooooooh, Newman's Own.

1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
4 eggs
1 1/2 cup flour
4 generous Table spoons coco powder
1 pinch baking soda
2 pinch baking powder
1 tea spoon mint extract
10 broken Oreo-esque cookies

Plus:
2/3 stick butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1 tea spoon mint extract
1/2 cup generous semi-sweet choc chips

Preheat to 325. A little above 325.

Cream the butter and sugar. These are intense cupcakes, so don't make them greasier or more ridiculous by melting the butter too much before you cream the sugar in. Then add the mint extract.

Blend in one egg at a time. I am a fan of the electric mixer. But no rules here. A few rules here.

Only ever bake one pan of cupcakes in the oven at a time, even if it takes longer to make 24. And if you are going to make them big, use a metal pan, not silicone (to support the tops), even though silicone is great for non-stickingness.

Sift in the dry ingredients. Make real fluffy like.

Add your smashed cookies. I advise you to consider your favorite size chunk to receive in mint oreo-ish icecream. Small enough that it's not a whole cookie, but not just a tiny snail trail of crumbs teasing your craving. Maybe smoosh them with your fingers in a ziplock bag and then dump it in. Or love the earth a little more, spare the baggie and just break them with your sticky little fingers right over the bowl. Stir them in with a spatula, not the electric one, dummy. It'd ruin your perfect crumble sizes.

Bake for 20 min.

These aren't really eat while they're warm cupcakes. I guess they could be, but then just drizzle some melted chocolate on top instead of frosting.

But if you can wait til they cool, and if you like buttery frosting (which is a little cloying if you ask me, but it'll hold as many cookies as the cake itself, and that is a sweet deal. You probbaly could just add some melted chocolate to whipped cream.) :

Melt a generous 1/2 cup chocolate chips in a double boiler. Which is a fancy way of saying to melt your chocolate without scorching it. Which can involve some trial and error in the microwave (zap a few seconds, stir, repeat) or boil some water in a pot on the stove top, and then put the chocolate in a bowl that is just a wee bit bigger than the pot - set the bowl on top of the boiling water and stir it as it melts.

Stir the not-cold butter into the warm chocolate. I say not-cold because you don't want it to be liquid, and you don't want it right out of the fridge. If you live some place warm, congratulations. If not, welcome to the real world, set the butter on top of the oven while you are baking. Keep an eye on it to prevent grand-scale butter puddling.

Once the chocolate and butter are mixed, whip them with the powdered sugar and mint extract. Taste. Nice, right? Now add ten more perfectly broken cookies. Eat six. Stir gently and floop onto the tops of your totally cooled cupcakes. Go ahead test me on this one. Try putting the frosting on too soon sometime.

Just imagine the day in which I make a ginger cupcake with Newman's Ginger-Os and cream cheese frosting. No Ruing.

No comments: